A READING - COURSE EVIL.

Few subjects have supplied more lasting material for our esteemed fellow contemporary, the Lampoon, than the bitter contests in the libraries which precede the tests in the large reading courses. There is considerable humor in the picture of a University member--and this is a true story--hurrying to the Boston Public Library by taxicab to secure a copy of a dollar and a half book which he is required to read by the following morning. Yet nearly every undergraduate, although his remedy may have differed, has been in much the same plight.

The lack of books in such courses as Economics 2 and Social Ethics 1, where it is impossible for more than a small number of men to possess the numerous volumes themselves, would be in a large measure alleviated if attention were paid the familiar advice to do the reading early. But even making allowance for difficulties arising as a result of that particular human frailty of procrastination, there is still a very generally admitted insufficiency of books in many courses. At present no funds exist for the purchase of more books in such courses. Those books which the library owns have been secured from miscellaneous funds as fine money and special gifts. To really remedy the existing inefficient conditions some such system as is in force in the scientific departments where special fees are charged for certain laboratory courses could very well be instituted. The fee need not be greater than a fraction of a dollar for each member of a large course and provided no considerable changes were made in the required reading, would not need to be permanently continued. For example, in a half course of 100 men approximately three volumes of each of ten required books could be added per year from a general fee of 50 cents. Neither spectacular nor apparently difficult of application, few reforms would yield more real results.